18 Comments

I'm a little confused as to the meaning of the word Rajti/Rajtas. Duo translates this sentence as "I am entitled to have a good job" and "I am allowed to have a good job." To me, in English, these sentences mean different things. To me, being entitled to something means that something is owed to you; there is an obligation that it be provided. Conversely, being allowed to do or have something simply means a lack of impediments in place to your having the thing in question; no one is obligated to provide it to you, simply not to prevent you from obtaining it.

So which does rajti mean? Is there some subtlety I'm missing, like this word not having a direct English language equivalent? Or am I just overthinking this? As is, I have no idea when it would be appropriate to use this word. And no matter how much further I get in the tree, it never becomes any clearer.

I think the English translation "I have the right to a good job" is similarly ambiguous between "I am entitled to one" and "I am allowed to have one", isn't it?

Considering that "rajti" comes from English "right", that's probably no coincidence.

Or have a look in an Esperanto dictionary (e.g. PIV, at vortaro.net) for "rajti" to see whether the definitions there make it any clearer.

October 31, 2015

[deactivated user]

I agree (belatedly - sorry!) In English, being allowed to have or to do something has the idea of being given permission, as in: "Adam's parents allowed him to go to bed late." In Esperanto, I would use "permesi" for this: "La gepatroj de Adamo permesis lin enlitiĝi malfrue.

On the other hand, being entitled to something means having the right to do it - Adam wasn't entitled to go to bed late, however much he may have argued, "But Mum, Dad, everyone else in my class stays up late!" In my opinion, it is being entitled, or having the right, to something is what the Esperanto verb "rajti" means.

"Lici" is a very uncommon word. After 20 years of speaking Esperanto, I cannot swear that I would recognize it out of context. I am sure that my other family members - all fluent speakers - would not recognize it. For comparison, rajti is literally 100 times more common.

The trouble with looking things up in bilingual dictionaries, is that this doesn't always tell you how to use them. DavidLamb3's example sentence "li licas" is incorrect. Lici is more like "to be kosher/OK" and is almost always used impersonally. That is, a subject is generally not expressed.

Ja en baleto ne licas paroli. In the ballet, it speaking is not permitted.

"Work" in the sense of effort that you put out for pay is not countable in English and so would not take the word "a".

December 6, 2017

[deactivated user]

I agree with that as far as the word "work" is concerned, but "laboron" can also be translated as "job", which is countable. Usually, though I haven't tried it with this sentence, Duolingo accepts "job" as a valid translation for "laboro".